1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to imaging and, more particularly, to a technique for managing a history of jobs executed by an image forming apparatus as a job history.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional job history management system records and stores a job history in a database when image forming apparatuses such as a printer and a digital multifunction peripheral execute printing, copying, facsimile (FAX), electronic mail sending, and other jobs. For example, a job history stored in the database may include information about a user who executed the job, an execution date and time, information identifying the executing image forming apparatus (IP address and/or serial number), the type of the executed job, and information about an image and/or text of a document. A job history management agent for transmitting various types of information about an image forming apparatus to a server is installed on the image forming apparatus. The job history management agent transmits, along with a job history, status information about the image forming apparatus and the job history management agent itself to the server at regular intervals. The server manages the received status information. If the server has not received status information within the regular interval, the server determines that some error has occurred in the image forming apparatus, and notifies the error to an administrator of the image forming apparatus.
Some image forming apparatuses have a function of entering a power saving mode, in which a central processing unit (CPU) is brought into a suspended state to reduce power consumption, if not operated by a user for a certain time.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-204027 discusses a system for managing power consumption of an image forming apparatus. A change in a power source state of the image forming apparatus is notified to a server at the timing of change in the power source state. The server records the time of shift of the power source state based on the notification from the image forming apparatus, and manages the power consumption.
According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2011-204027, the image forming apparatus issues the notification to the server at the timing when the power source state of the image forming apparatus changes. However, it is difficult to appropriately manage the status of the image forming apparatus by using such information alone.
The foregoing job history management agent can be used to acquire more detailed information about the image forming apparatus and more appropriately manage the status of the image forming apparatus. To transmit information about the image forming apparatus to the server by using the job history management agent, the CPU needs to be working and the image information apparatus is not able to enter the power saving mode. If the image forming apparatus has entered the power saving mode, the job history management agent is not able to transmit the status information. In such a case, the server may erroneously determine that some error has occurred in the image forming apparatus.